Video: Best punt evah?

posted at 6:46 pm on December 28, 2012 by Mary Katharine Ham

It’s 79 yards measured from the line of scrimmage, 89 from the point of the kick. But it’s not even so much the distance as how it gets there and where it ends up. Anyone who’s played a backyard game knows the ball can bounce like Buster Keaton’s hat. I haven’t seen a bounce (or careen?) this lucky in a long time.

Given this happened in a Duke bowl game (yep, that happened), I doubted too many of you caught it live, so enjoy. This is punter Will Monday in the second quarter of the Belk Bowl in Charlotte Thursday. The good news is he’s a freshman. The bad news is Duke football will probably give him plenty of chances to practice his skill:

I’m sure I could weave this laboriously into a fiscal cliff metaphor, but for today, let’s just keep the sports clean, shall we? For all the Duke haters out there, you’ll be glad to hear this was followed immediately by a 99-yard touchdown drive for Cincinnati. It was an entertaining game, and Duke hung in there playing pretty competent ball against a 9-win team, despite being robbed of a 53-yard field goal at the half thanks to an illegal substitution call against the Bearcats. Cincinnati won, 48-34 in a game that went from very sunny to very ugly for Duke in the last five minutes.

And now, in addition to the football, I have this for the ladies. Connor Vernon, a senior NFL prospect and all-time ACC leader in receiving yards (that happened, too). What? I have to cheer myself up during bowl season what with my Bulldogs so royally screwed. I like to imagine the reporter for the Duke Chronicle trying to figure out, “What are these yards you speak of?”

Please consider this a bowl season open thread for your venting and predictions, and of course, other highlight links.

Blowback

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Most punters can get a great deal of distance if they want to, but that’s not what they’re supposed to be trying for. The real goal is to make the punt go really high, so that the rest of the team can get downfield before it comes back down again. A shorter, higher punt is preferred to a longer, lower punt.

Wait, Duke has a football team? But in all seriousness Cutcliffe is a great coach. I’m glad he’s no longer coaching at Tennessee. His offenses have my Dawgs fits. He has Duke heading in the right direction.

I seem to remember a punter punting the ball from the back of his endzone and the ball landing at the 1. Anyone remember that?

Saw the whole game, pulling for Duke all the way (in honor of the wrongly accused Lacrosse team). The good news: the game was closer than the final score would suggest and that punt will be on every highlight reel for the rest of time. The bad news: well, of course, the final score. Anyway, it was good to see them give a darn good Cincinnati team a go.

I have a challenger, but not on film (testament to my age): college rugby, Rutgers v Columbia. I get the ball and see about 5enemy jerseys bearing down on me so I think ‘kick to touch and we can regroup at the lineout’. Kicked it so it would go out asap and everything went slow-motion: the ball went straight for the school photographer (who I suspect was hoping for a shot of me getting buried) and into the camera. The explosion of blood and camera parts was too much – was laughing so hard I literally fell down. All the Columbia chicks were totally outraged, though – couldn’t see the humor, even though they were cheering every big hit against us. I still crack up when I think about it…

The best punt ever was back in 1969 by rookie punter Steve O’Neal of the New York Jets at Mile High against the Broncos. Punted from the back of the end zone with the ball on the 1 and hit it just about 79 yards in the thin Denver air.

It got over the head of the Broncos deep man and then proceeded to roll just about 29 yards down to the Denver 1. A 98-yard punt is the most perfect punt you can ever kick — one yard further and it’s a touchback, and the ball starts out on the opposing team’s 20 (and while based on the J-E-T-S, Jets, Jets, Jets’ recent offensive woes, you’d expect them to have a good punter, this did happen in 1969, right after the Jets were coming off their Super Bowl win and in a season when they lost in the playoffs to eventual Super Bowl IV champ Kansas City, so they really weren’t a team that punted a whole lot in ’69).

You know, if the NFL really does get rid of kickoffs and replaces them with punts, all of a sudden punters are going to be more important than they are now. Since Monday is a freshman, if he reaches the pros in four years, we could by then look at punters quite differently.

Just when we made up after our separation during the Texans/Vikings last weekend, here we go again, gg. This should be our last legal separation for awhile (but the Super Bowl would be worth it!!!). Anyway, we’re done, over, kaput (for the next few hours). :-(

Well, I guess you could root for the Raiders and all would be warm and fuzzy and back to normal … On the other hand, making up is a lot of fun, too. I mean, isn’t that the raison d’être for Victoria’s Secret?
;-)

I seem to remember a punter punting the ball from the back of his endzone and the ball landing at the 1. Anyone remember that?

midgeorgian on December 28, 2012 at 6:57 PM

You must be referring to this:

The best punt ever was back in 1969 by rookie punter Steve O’Neal of the New York Jets at Mile High against the Broncos. Punted from the back of the end zone with the ball on the 1 and hit it just about 79 yards in the thin Denver air.

It got over the head of the Broncos deep man and then proceeded to roll just about 29 yards down to the Denver 1. A 98-yard punt is the most perfect punt you can ever kick — one yard further and it’s a touchback, and the ball starts out on the opposing team’s 20 (and while based on the J-E-T-S, Jets, Jets, Jets’ recent offensive woes, you’d expect them to have a good punter, this did happen in 1969, right after the Jets were coming off their Super Bowl win and in a season when they lost in the playoffs to eventual Super Bowl IV champ Kansas City, so they really weren’t a team that punted a whole lot in ’69).

jon1979 on December 28, 2012 at 7:19 PM

Here’s a link to it, starting at 1:07 of the clip. What a kick (and bounce)!

The best punt I know of was an 81-yard quick kick by Johnny Evans of NC State which preserved 15-14 lead for a win at Penn State in 1975. With very little time left the wolfpack was pinned back near their own goal line and Penn State had a great kicker, Chris Bahr. On third down QB/punter Evans launched a quick kick which caught PSU by surprise. The ball rolled to the Penn State 10-yard line and they couldn’t get close enough for Bahr to attempt a game winning field goal. Now matter how great a punt is if the team doesn’t win it is moot.

What they really want is for the receiver to call for a fair catch because he knows that otherwise he’s going to get hammered just as soon as he catches the ball then drop it without ever having control so it’s a free ball.

Shout out for my NIU Huskies. Free Shoes University and several sports jerks have heaped on the indignation a MAC champ is in the Orange Bowl playing mighty FSU. All the pundits and FSU players are scoffing at a physically smaller team that will be playing without the head coach who got them there.

The Orange Bowl will be the most fun to watch bowl game this year because of the Northern Illinois University Huskies. They play the fastest tempo no-huddle on the planet, and do not let up until the final whistle. They win in the forth quarter when the other team is standing around bent over hands on hips gasping for breath.

If the refs call a tight game and don’t allow cheap shots-FSU’s stock in trade-NIU will come from behind fourth quarter and win.

Rather than best punt ever, I’d call this the best punting sequence ever: On the possession just before this one, the Cinn punter whacked one into the low seventies, and on the possession after this the Cinn punter had one come down in the 60′s, although there was a return to stop the role. Unreal.

In addition, Duke fans can pat themselves on their collective backs because the players at Duke can at least spell football, which is beyond the capabilities of the players at many other FBS schools. As long as the present coach sticks around they will be entertaining, go to a bowl game every couple of years, and generally improve the moral of Duke graduates. What more can a truly academic oriented college ask for?